Found Footage Friday: WWE IN AUSTRALIA~! BABE FACE~! FANTASMA~! SUPER ASTRO~! SCORPIO~! SATANICO~! EMILIO~!

Super Astro/Fantasma vs. Babe Face/Scorpio WWA Olympic Auditorium 09/12/87

MD: This has been sitting in plain sight for a few years but was thankfully was brought to light by the Wrestling Playlists newsletter recently. It hits so many of the marks you'd want with four very talented wrestlers doing their thing in a slightly alien place for slightly alien promotion. Super Astro is this tightly contained ball of energy, a little shorter than his peers, a little stockier than you'd expect, but it's almost like there's a wick counting down on him and he's always ready to explode. It gives his roles and vaults and stylized tricks an extra bit of oomph. They're things that would be impressive regardless but with him it's all somehow supercharged, and Scorpio, bald and wide and spry took it all so well. He shoved Fantasma before the bell and Fantasma bounced back off the ropes and shoved him back, causing him to bump huge. That's just the sort of guy Scorpio was.

I wouldn't say this had a rudo ref so much as the rudo was holding the tecnicos to far higher standards. That meant they withheld tags in a way that you don't usually see in lucha (though the out of the ring rule was definitely in play) and it allowed the rudos to stay in charge in the primera. That built the pressure for the comeback, even through the end of the fall and a nice double takover onto Fantasma and subsequent submission. You can tell the pressure was up beacuse there was an upset Granny at ringside. 

It was interesting because they used the ref taking back/not allowing tags to build heat but the moment of comeback was wholly within the ring on a bit of rudo miscommunication. From there things went even with it looking like the tecnicos might get swept under again only to outquick and outslick the rudos, all building to Astro knocking Scorpio out and landing on him with a senton through the ropes to the floor. Brutal stuff and Scorpio either bladed or got bust open. Either way, he was a bloody mess. That was the equalizer as simultaneously Fantasma was doing a ridiculous submission in Tombstone position on Babe Face (who I have less to say about here but he was perfectly fine in his role).

The tercera was full of the sort of great exchanges you'd expect until Scorpio was able to go behind on Fantasma off the ropes, using his momentum to push him through the ropes and right into a waiting chairshot from Babe Face. From there it was an academic 2-on-1 with them picking up Astro repeatedly after having him beat. That sort of hubris didn't lead to comeuppance though as they finished him off after one of Babe Face's great off-center running sentons and a nasty legdrop from Scorpio. I'm sure this led to some phenomenal return match we don't have, but at least we have this.

ER: You show up for a match like this to see what Super Astro might do, but then you leave getting to see  stocky rudo toughness from Babe Face and Scorpio. Super Astro is must watch in any setting. You're always going to get something worth writing about. Imagine seeing this stocky little guy in LA doing a slingshot senton to the floor in 1987. It's great. But this is a match that makes you want to watch more Babe Face and Scorpio. Scorpio Sr.! I have not seen much Scorpio Sr. He is as ugly as his son in a completely different way, more hideous monster way. He also looks like the perfect wrestler. Wide, round, ugly, bald, cocky. He's got a fat buff guy or buff fat guy body squeezed into a red King Kong Bundy double strap that you wish could be pulled off as well in modern wrestling but everyone is shaped wrong. Babe Face, it turns out, also has a perfect pro wrestling physique. He is stocky and muscular and compact and powerful. He's Bill Dundee with 20 pounds of thick bulk. He is one of three of the smallest most powerful men, wrestling inside of the largest ring in wrestling history. You fill not believe how long it takes Super Astro to run ropes in this ring. It's incredible. 

We all love Super Astro and we love the way he is in a competition with himself to take higher back body drops. But this hits peaks whenever Babe Face or Scorpio are throwing punches and chops and headbutts. Babe Face headbutts Super Astro in the eye socket to force a tag out and I thought we were going to get a bloody mask hole Super Astro match. He is stocky rudo cocktease, pouncing Astro to the floor to interrupt a dive, cameras catching a great close up of Scorpio's mug before he overhand chops Astro out of his boots. Things build throughout to big Babe Face/Fantasma showdowns, until Babe Face fucking BRAINS Fantasma with an open folding chair to the top of the head while Fantasma was draped over the ropes. The announcers say something about Intrepidos Punks, so either they're describing these two stocky men of differing beauty, or they're advertising the late 80s movie of the same name and either way makes this great. Los Intrepidos Punks lay a fucking beating on Astro while Fantasma's corpse is under the ropes, slapping him back and forth, Babe Face hitting full weight sentons, kneeling on his chest and groin while Scorpio holds a legdrop like the most smug sideburn asshole.  

I liked Fantasma's aggressively pistoning 69 bearhug. 

Emilio Charles vs. Satanico [hair vs hair] CMLL 3/20/98? 

MD: Pretty unique hair match here though one that hits a lot of the right notes despite that and despite some goofiness. As best as I can tell, this is rudo vs. rudo though Charles is the clear crowd favorite. Satanico gets an early ambush and starts dismantling Charles like only he can. No one is better in the history of wrestling at orchestrating violence, including his own. The bump Charles takes into the third row, head over heels, is excellent. Charles starts to mount some comebacks (including one really nice Fujiwara armbar reversal out of a grounded abdominal stretch that's lucha loose but symbolically perfect) but the ref (who apparently he hit the week before?) seems to get in his way each time and Satanico finally gets the caida on a backslide with a fast count.

That causes Charles to start complaining to the commission. Rey Mendoza is out there and says that Charles has a stipulation in his contract that he can call for a change in ref so Babe Richard comes out to take over. Meanwhile, Charles is unloading on Satanico, including tossing him into the crowd. Satanico is able to sneak in a foul though and locks in the Satan's Knot. That seems like the end and the end to Charles' hair, but he gets lost in the moment and refuses to let go and the ref awards the caida to Charles. So it's a bit of an odd dynamic with the ref switch and Satanico basically winning the second fall only to have it overturned. It all gets paid off in the tercera with Charles getting a foul in of his own and everything building to another Satan's Knot only for Charles to fight his way out of it and lock in this great Gory Special (where he has to slowly bring his hands together) before dropping down with it into a pin. I wouldn't call this the most primal match or the quickest path between two points but these guys were so good and they made this work so well for what it was.

ER: The ugliest default babyface fighting dirty through getting punched in the forehead and thrown into the third row by the devil. Satan himself throwing short punches aimed to open up an ugly man's forehead and biting him. I love situations where Charles became the tecnico. He is good at working through tecnico stages of a three fall match, peaking the reactions in the tercera and getting bigger reactions with consecutive quebradoras while the crowd loudly hates Satanico for breaking holds with biting at men's thighs. The devil fights dirty when the devil's beautiful head of hair is at stake. Satanico is a great rudo because he also wrestlers through submissions like the tecnico, pulling each limb with celebratory swipes like he's an Olympic runner raising both arms through the finish line. It makes Charles' win, through a biased ref and the persistent devil himself, even more of an ugly man tecnico triumph. I thought the execution on Charles' tercera-winning Gory Special was so good for this specific match. A fought for Gary, Charles' hands clasped, drawing out the inescapable backslide. 

It didn't get as violent as I expected it would, for a match I knew nothing about. When you start with Satanico biting and punching at a cut you expect escalation and that violent escalation never comes. We also don't get the actual haircutting. Satanico knew that he looked like a totally different badass when he had his head shaved and I wanted to see what that looked like at 50.  

Batista/Chris Jericho/Chris Benoit vs. Triple H/Ric Flair/Edge WWE 4/8/05

MD: New Richard Land Handheld from Australia right after Wrestlemania 21. Some of those names should worry you for a 50 minute clip, maybe, but this is house show bullshit and that's the best bullshit there is. Plus it's about ten minutes of entrances and pre-match talking and ten minutes of them breaking down the ring. I thought I was going to be taking one for the team here but I had fun with this. The pre-match yapping was ridiculous with Triple H going on about how terrible Australia was and how in America they had an army that could kick their asses, the Salvation Army. Basically the most definitional Triple H stuff imaginable. Batista's retort was short and sweet (he had just won the title), and the crowd was hot for all of this really.

All of the early exchanges were fun. Benoit and Edge started. Benoit chopped Edge out of the corner. Edge went for a tag. Both Triple H and Flair dropped down to avoid it. Jericho came in and Batista and Benoit cheerlead the crowd in a Y2J chant. Flair came in, had a chop off with Jericho so the fans could chant woo and then walked into the babyface corner to eat a bunch of punches and take the first flop (of many) of the night. Jericho grabbed a sign and paraded around with it. Batista came in. Flair eyepoked him and chopped him. Batista no sold it. Flair begged off. Batista waggled his finger. Flair took his second back body drop. Triple H came in. The crowd went up for the idea of them going at it. Flair wooed at Batista from the corner repeatedly. Batista posed and the crowd went nuts. Triple H won on a shoulder block exchange and posed. They milked a test of strength for a while before doing it. Triple H kicked Batista, drove him down. Batista fought back up and clotheslined Triple H over the top and the crowd loved every second of all of this. Truly entertaining house show BS, what much, much more of wrestling should be and what a lot of the times it isn't in a world where these barely exist anymore.

Again, this had a ton of time and they worked double heat on it. Jericho was drawn into the heel corner and when he came back and made a hot tag, Benoit came in hot for a bit only to miss the diving headbutt. Eventually, Triple H had Benoit down in the corner but got distracted by Batista and leaped right into a foot, wherein he spent an entire minute (not a second less) standing there looking at the lights dazed before flopping. Only on a house show. I'm actually not sure that spot hit as well as it could have but points for committing to the bit certainly. That let Batista make it in finally, let everything break down, and let Edge eat the power bomb (thumbs down beforehand) to end the match. I don't know if I would have seen this same match around the loop but to see it one time was honestly a lot of fun. Just a totally different world that barely exists anymore. And we're talking 2005, not 1985 here.

ER: We've been doing - and Matt's been running entirely - Found Footage Friday for over a decade now. It's probably the most valuable thing we've done because it preserves at least 1-3 different takes on footage that none of us as fans had ever seen before. In many cases, we've written about matches that can get newly added into a Greatest Matches discussion, 40 years later. New narratives, new looks, new opportunities to have views changed. It's an incredible resource, constantly growing. This week alone we have a new apuestas match, new Babe Face...and now a new 30 minute match with SC stalwarts like HHH and Edge and Chris Benoit. 

People love our HHH writing, and this is the match for those people. This is an essential HHH match for HHH fans, because not only did all 30 minutes feel completely laid out by HHH, but all six men wrestle like HHH from different eras of his career. This is a match agented, produced, and then wrestled by six HHHs. Jericho wrestles like Terra Ryzing, Batista wrestles like HHH did when he came back gassed up after the quad tear, Benoit sells like HHH in a way that you know it won't lead anywhere, Flair is slowed down so he wrestles like HHH during that long era of bloated HHH aping Flair spots, Edge wrestles like the worst version of 1998 bad Opponents' Momentum offense HHH, and HHH wrestles like some unholy house show HHH amalgam that includes a long comedy spot that he doesn't know how to make resonate but he 100% would have gotten anyone else fired over.

This was a HHH match in every way, and it was good. There is so much wrestling I've never watched and so much wrestling I never will watch but I love Matt, and Matt got me to watch a 30 minute HHH/HHH/HHH vs. HHH/HHH/HHH in Australia, because HHH - with his meaty nose and heavy brow beadying his eyes - is like Bruno at MSG to Australians.  

Seeing Flair work the brunt of a long house show match was surprisingly fun. HHH could never connect his in-ring comedy to a crowd like this, and we get a literal example of that during what should have been the crowd noise peak. Flair's punches looked fantastic throughout, and even though he enters the match in control he's soon taking a back body drop and it leads to a fantastic Flair spot, where he rolls up in the babyface corner, eats a headbutt from Benoit and a punch from Batista, hops around like he's getting back into the fight, then flops. Flair takes another back body drop when Batista tags in, classically begging off before poking him in the eyes, but none of his chops have any affect and he's soon flopping and back dropping and leaving down the aisle. It's the kind of ass showing that HHH admires about Flair, but could never bring himself to actually look weak enough for the extended periods that make the stooging work, meaning it always came off like Stooging While Still in Control and never worked. After Benoit gets his hand smashed with a chair (nasty business smashing it against a ringpost) and gets cut off, the long heat segment builds to Benoit's hot tag, but the entire tag is iced out by HHH doing a full minute of Working On Material that sounds great on paper but gets no reaction live. 

HHH leaps off the middle buckle into Benoit's up-stretched boot and stands there on his feet, selling and swaying, for exactly one minute. You can picture Larry Sweeney doing this spot and burning the house down, knowing the exact moment to grind an entire match to a halt for one self-aggrandizing spot, and how much HHH would fucking BURY anyone else who did that spot, regardless of how well it got over. To see HHH pull out a 2006 Chikara spot on a house show and get no reaction for it is the wrestling equivalent to a gay bashing Republican getting caught in a rest stop bathroom, all secret unfulfilled urges and embarrassing missteps. It's as clear as day that HHH would brand anyone else who tried this much of a comedy overreach a mark who isn't serious about the business that he's devoted his life to. Six different HHHs in one match, and the real HHH is the one desperate to show his chops as a comedy worker that didn't understand punchlines

Great match. The kind of match you can put on after a Gene Snitsky/Shelton Benjamin title match.

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Jericho vs. Suzuki

 

9. Chris Jericho vs. Minoru Suzuki AEW Dynamite 7/24/24

ER: I cannot stand modern matches with long bad-looking stand and trade sections, and that's what makes up the bulk of this match between two guys whose wrestling matches I no longer look forward to seeing. "Hey man you hear about that match where two guys just traded forearms for a half hour" yeah man I'm never going to watch it or read about it. Why would I want to watch two wrestlers throw worked strikes with a hard strike thrown in maybe every fifth exchange? Well, I guess there are rules, and there are exceptions to rules, and the rules and their exceptions change when the combined age in the ring is 110 years old. Two 30 year olds chopping each other and making faces and straining their necks? Sounds terrible. Shit would suck and nobody would speak about it again. "Hey man you hear about that match where two grandfathers chopped each other until their hands were swollen and blood was running down their chests?" The rules have changed. 

It's a bit sad seeing the most lucrative earning years of Suzuki's career finally winding down. The man has made career money working forearm exchange matches for 5 years in the states. The polaroid money alone must be incredible. Every person who saw clips of the Mecha Mummy match and had never heard of Yoshiaki Fujiwara lined up in droves to see Minoru Suzuki blow into town with his 5 Light/1 Heavy Stick Out Tongue Repeat routine and every single person who ever wanted to scream Kaze ni nare with a a ton of people who look exactly like them has had chance after chance after chance to do so. Now Minoru Suzuki blows into the Volunteer State for the first time and the crowd response to Ayumi Nakamura was so tepid that I finally realized the whole thing is over. It's been over for me for a while now, but there were still believers and I assumed it would thrill them until he was in his late 60s. I wanted it to. I couldn't have been less excited to watch a 2024 Minoru Suzuki match against 2024 Chris Jericho. I didn't want to see Suzuki working a Jericho match and I really didn't want to see Jericho work a Suzuki match. God. Please. 

What I did want to watch was an honest to god war of attrition between two old guys who decided to hit each other until one of them gassed out. It's Jericho. Jericho's the one who gasses out. Jericho's obviously going to be the one who gasses out from hitting a guy with chops as hard as he can. It's at least 8 minutes of two old guys doing nothing but chops, and that sure sounds rote as I type it but what might start rote turns intriguing real quick when you can see Jericho visibly tiring and physically in pain as he gets outstruck. Minoru Suzuki barely regards Jericho's first chop, and by minute three he isn't reacting in any way to them. Jericho, in continuing to hit Suzuki, begins to only damage himself. Suzuki was reacting to his chops like Jericho was a young boy from a rival fed. He had no life behind his chops, could barely swing his arms, and the more gassed out he got the harder his body reacted to Suzuki's chops. Blood was literally running down Jericho's chest in rivulets and he could no longer flex his chest or straighten his arms enough to absorb Suzuki's chops. His entire body was being turned with every chop and yet he was stuck in this bit now and couldn't get out. His hand was killing him and the only thing he could do was beat his hand against a small brick wall that was never going to break. All Jericho had to do was break, but he was in it, and you could tell he was really seeing just how long he could go with old man Suzuki, who it must be said now has the exact same posture and movement as old man Fujiwara. 

Jericho wanted to test himself, and that's interesting. That's more than just a too long forearm exchange or even a too long chop exchange. Jericho wanted to see how much he could absorb and see how far through the pain he could push himself. That's some rock headed dumb brain wrestler stuff right there man. He doesn't need to do that. Nobody asked him to do that and I bet the majority of people watching him do it wished he wasn't doing it and weren't interested in seeing it. But Jericho wanted to do it because he's a dumb pro wrestler and wanted to see how many more chops he could take after his chest was busted open in several spots, and wrestlers who don't need the money who choose to do stupid physical things are the kinds of wrestlers I still want to watch. 

He eventually broke and the match pivoted into Suzuki working over Jericho's self-pummeled hand, and I laughed when Jericho torched his arms and then had to get the bad one arm barred over the ropes and smashed inside a folding chair. This man don't know when to quit and I realized I was smack in the middle of the most interesting Suzuki match in years, because Jericho had twisted and tweaked his formula and made the exchanges turn into limb work that actually meant something and flowed out of the endless stand and trade. 

You would not believe how uninterested I was in seeing these two wrestle in 2024, and they made me interested. Rules change. 

2024 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2022 Ongoing MOTY List: Jericho vs. Danielson

 

2. Chris Jericho vs. Bryan Danielson AEW Dynamite 9/14

ER: I watched this match on January 6, 2024, the three year anniversary of the most important date in the Jericho household, and I think this match should be considered among the all time greatest Jericho matches in his very long career. Jericho is 51 years old, which is past the age where you automatically expect to see any athlete or performer's greatest work, and I was blown away how Jericho was able to work this great match without relying on his age for the match story. Jericho is a different wrestler now than he was younger, but this wasn't about an old guy showing he could still hang (even though it did), until his slower step and aging body leads to a painful loss. Jericho's act impressed me because of how effective it still played at his age, but this match would have been just as great if he worked it the same way at 31. 

He doesn't get any kind of break in this match and it's impressive as hell. The first 5 minutes is exclusively him getting chopped and kicked and thrown inside and outside the ring before finally ducking a kick and almost pulling Danielson to the mat with a German. Danielson welting and bruising and purpling Jericho's chest, and the pained way Jericho instinctively began flinching from these cruel shots, only got more intense the deeper the match went, hammering Jericho's chest and turning the chops into something that looked like they would physically wear any man down. You want to talk worn down? Jericho took so many brutal chops that it lead to his chest actually being completely sunken in and his pecs looking weirdly shaped before the match even started. From the chops. 

I almost always hate Fighting From Your Knees spots in modern wrestling, but Jericho does a great version of a spot I hate. I couldn't even tell you if I've seen anyone do this spot better, or who that person even was. Jericho alone owns it now. When they started taking turns punching each other in the head while kneeling directly in front of each other, it was easily the only part of the match I began to dislike, after thinking every other part had been excellent...until Jericho took over and started punching Danielson really hard in the side of the head and then started slamming the side of his addled and uncleared-by-some-doctors head into the mat. Jericho began a spot that he has to know was hack and overplayed and it felt like he was showing how to make that spot an actual successful real part of a match, a red-faced boat dealership owner's fantasy coming true as he beats an undercover Antifa member brainless on the Capitol steps. 

Pulling off the Lionsault in your early 50s is cool, sorry but that's the rule. Moonsaults of any kind past 50 are automatically cool. The moonsault is a crazy spot for a guy a decade older than me to still be doing, especially so because Jericho's success rate gets worse and more dangerous the older he gets, so the move feels like a Big Move than ever. Jericho has always had a great top rope huracanrana, and it is still a really impressive huracanrana. It doesn't have the leaping height it did 25 years ago, but it's been replaced with a lower trajectory and looks more powerful for it. That said, it's his punches while standing on the top rope before hitting his rana that looked even better, thrown right at Danielson's brow, Jericho balancing by holding Danielson's head and punching. I love a good missed ringpost charge spot and Jericho does a great fast miss and deflated fall through the ropes to the apron. 

Not only do Jericho's LionTamer and single leg crab look great, sitting heavily into both in a controlled way, but he is operating on such an entire new plane that his spinning toe hold looked like a fucking RINGS level submission weapon. Illusion made Danielson's leg look like it was getting bent around Jericho's calf, and I love how Chris Jericho is the technician finally able to show us the most painful version of a historically funny hold. Perhaps even more impressive is how his intentionally slow application of the figure 4 managed to breathe fresh life into a spot that has been done so many slightly different ways by the greats and also by the shittiest wrestlers ever, making me buy the move as a real honest to god finish in a way that I didn't think possible. 

Chris Jericho is clearly as effective as ever in the ring, and that's the story of the match. He will go on to lose this match, but he will not lose because of ineffectiveness or age. He was never ineffective. He lost because Bryan Danielson can beat any other wrestler on any given night. Chris Jericho - as wrestler and possibly only as a wrestler - is as relevant as ever. 

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 11/14 - 11/20 Part 2

AEW Full Gear 11/19

Eddie Kingston vs Jun Akiyama

MD: It's not every day you get to watch a guy live out his dream. We hear about dreams a lot in pro wrestling. Stuff like the Hardy brothers or Edge and Christian growing up to be tag team champions, Shawn Michaels with the boyhood dream fulfilled, Sasha Banks learning about Eddy passing in the arena, that sort of thing. And then there's Eddie Kingston, with a different life and a different dream. He'd been pushing for this match through social media and interviews and just wishing on a star, and we live in a pro wrestling world in 2022 where sometime wishes and dreams can sometimes can sometimes come true. That's the joy of AEW more than anything else, the dream of TWA and ROH fulfilled. And on this night, we got to come along for the ride.

Look, I'll be totally transparent here. If you read me talking about Eddie and Ishii and Eddie and Takeshita, you know that Eddie vs a Japanese guy isn't always my favorite Eddie Kingston. It can bring out the worst and the most excessive and all of the things that I, personally, don't love about the style. And yet, I loved just about every second of this. Some of that was Eddie, who put his heart out there, who wanted the perfect match, who threw his face into every forearm, who let out a scream, one of the many screams on this night actually, that was primal and true. It was, in part, Eddie going for a killshot on the apron so early or outright biting his hero to get an edge, completely unafraid to leave his mark on his idol's flesh. So much of it, however, was Akiyama, genuine, the real deal, no degrees of separation, with just enough grit and age to make the real even realer. So much of it was how much he threw himself into this, the way his knees buckled as Eddie lit up his chest, the bump he took the outside, the steel in his eyes as Kingston met his gaze, the amazing way his feet flew up on the DDT's impact. When he rolled through on the half and half and ducked under to hit the first exploder, the sort of thing you doubt again and again or at least that I do, that takes me out of a match each and every time, I bought it, or at least I let myself buy it, just this once. Call it a Thanksgiving week miracle. Call it yet another thing Eddie Kingston willed into the world on this night. 

As good and visceral and true as the match was, the post-match was all the more so. If you're here and reading this now, you probably got choked up a bit. There's nothing I can write that's more meaningful than that. When wrestling makes you feel, there's nothing better. He shared his dream with us, through pain and sweat and effort and persistence and hope, all from a guy who self-admittedly doesn't find that last bit so easy. The stuff pro wrestling dreams are made of.

Chris Jericho vs Sammy Guevara vs Claudio Castagnoli vs Bryan Danielson

MD: Maybe I'm feeling particularly forgiving due to the magic of Eddie Kingston's wish, but I'm going to go out and forgive most of the inherent failings of a 4-way here. Yes, at one point Claudio was out on the floor for a bit too long. Yes, Jericho really shouldn't have kicked out of the G2H/Shooting Star Press; someone should have broken it up instead, as is the point of having other guys in there. In general, though, this was really good and it was because all four wrestlers brought the best of what they could do and it was all pretty structurally smart, more focused on story than spots, or at least having the story drive the spots. I've said recently that Sammy is, in a lot of ways, the perfect opponent for 2022 Claudio and 2022 Danielson, but they're his perfect opponents as well. Danielson's able to make use of Sammy's agility and speed and intensity and creativeness. No one in the world can catch Sammy better than Claudio; the basing on the shooting star to the floor was like very little I've ever seen. Against these two, things that Sammy does that shouldn't work, whether it's his Snuka tribute leapfrog/backflip/standing Spanish Fly or the bonkers cutter followed by a Spanish Fly in rapid succession, simply work. The reason why we value execution in pro wrestling, whether it's great punches or incredible agility is that it allows for suspension of disbelief and when put against Danielson and Claudio, a new level of such suspension is unlocked for Guevara. 

Anyway, they quickly went into the story here, with the BCC pinballing the JAS and then facing off against one another. Later on, when they faced off against each other again, it was like two masters of a fighting style knowing exactly how to counter one another as they switched through the hammer and anvil elbows. Jericho and Sammy rained small slights upon one another before outright going at it to the crowd's delight. Jericho was astoundingly opportunistic here, channeling the most craven villains imaginable (full Bobby Heenan, really) and not paying for it and paying for it again and again until he made a daring leap during the giant swing, what felt like such a dangerous spot, whether it was or not, and then capitalizing for the victory. All four ways have the decked stacked against them and therefore, just by the sheer level of difficulty involved, this was better than it had any right to be.

Sting/Darby Allin vs Jeff Jarrett/Jay Lethal:

MD: I had some misgivings about this one because Jarrett being there made Sting seem a little older and you didn't want that given how many other main acts he's gone over in the last couple of years, but between Jarrett's condition and the fact that the first half of the match quite smartly saw young paired with old as they brawled around the arena, it worked out pretty well overall. I had wanted Singh in there or maybe a Sonjay/Singh/Lethal handicap, but at his stage of his development, it was probably better to just have Satnam in there for a few big moments, and what big moments they were, the two almost impossible catches, Sting's dive, the chokeslam, and the missed splash into the combo Death Drop/Coffin Drop which had been set up previously, but never hit as no one was quite big enough until now. Jarrett added a lot too, with reactions for the last row as he encountered Sting for the first time at the start, bouncing appropriately between Sting and Darby on punches, and then beating down Darby with fairly credible stuff when it was time for it.

I, and Taz along with me, thought that they steered off course when they took about three minutes to shift to more conventional tag rules. Immediately thereafter, Sonjay and Satnam just walked into the ring casually, so building to a hot tag for the sake of it was dubious at best. Sting couldn't quite land the finishing spot, but I was okay with this, as it was set up by Darby basically hulking(Stinging?) up after the just nuts guitar shot and there was a sense that maybe the student is becoming the master finally. Despite some grumblings about either Lethal or Jarrett from various quarters, this felt like it belonged on the card, no question.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 11/14 - 11/20 Part 1

AEW Dynamite 11/16

Blackpool Combat Club (Bryan Danielson/Claudio Castagnoli) vs. Jericho Appreciation Society (Chris Jericho/Sammy Guevara)

MD: Just a high quality, functional tag to start the show and set up the PPV 4-way. The ultimate goals were to make Claudio look strong coming in, make Jericho look vulnerable, and lean in hard on the preexisting vulnerability from the previous week with Danielson's eye. All three factors will likely come into play in the title match. They've mentioned the idea that Sammy might go into business for himself, but that wasn't really touched on in the text itself here. I mentioned last week that in some ways he's the perfect 2022 Bryan Danielson opponent, even if he's not the wrestler I'd like to see him up against the most. It's not far off to say that about Claudio too. The hangtime he was able to off of Claudio's power on a few spots (like the pop up uppercut) was just amazing. Outside of that one specific pairing, the other three have been married to one another off and on over a good chunk of this year. Again, it's maybe not what I'd want for Danielson, and even, at this point, not what I want for Jericho anymore (I was all for the idea of a JAS vs Neo-Pinnacle w/Joe feud back around the Canada shows), but familiarity, at the very least, can breed creativity. Three matches in, Danielson's able to twist and contort certain spots and a certain comfort level on things like dives. Sammy hit a spectacular one on Danielson to get the two of them out of the way for the Claudio/Jericho Giant Swing/Walls bit. Danielson hit a visceral tope on Sammy to get them out of the way for the finish. Likewise, that giant swing spot with Jericho holding the bat and Aubrey recoiling back into the corner so she didn't get clocked by it on the rotations was brilliant. So there's value in the continued pairings. So when I truly, deeply hope that with the ROH PPV up coming, if not this PPV ahead of us, we're at the end of this feud, it's not necessarily because the content is stale or no longer worth watching. I'm just ready to see these four wrestle other people.

AEW Rampage 11/18

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs. Jun Akiyama/Konosuke Takeshita

 

MD: Different people will give you different answers about this, but if you forced me to come up with a single, unified theory of pro wrestling, it would be this: Pro wrestling is about anticipation and payoff. Here the anticipation was for seeing Jun Akiyama and Eddie Kingston fight each other. And the payoff? Well, we only got a taste of it as it was, in the best and carniest pro wrestling fashion, building towards another show and another match and another moment. I have to admit that the anticipation was pretty glorious in and of itself. They did everything they could to keep Eddie and Akiyama out of the ring together, starting with Kingston vs. Takeshita, with heat on both Ortiz and then Takeshita so that partners could cycle in and out without the two facing. Ortiz knew the match wasn't about him but also that he'd have to carry a lot of it in order to prevent the teased pairing and he rose to the occasion, hitting hard, but taking all of Akiyama's stuff. Akiyama was sudden and decisive in his violence. For all of the anticipation in the match, when he struck, it was without flourish or hesitation. He'd reach for Ortiz and spike him with a pile driver with no pomp, just impact. Kingston let himself get distracted but then shut down every opening. His eyes wandered. His fists did not. All of my issues with Takeshita tend to be structural and almost all of them were alleviated by this being a tag match. 

The match built and built to the possibility of Kingston and Akiyama facing off. When they did it was to prevent the exploder, with Ortiz still the legal man and Eddie doing his best Taue impression to rush in and break up an opportunity and break down the match, the way so many All Japan tags broke down. The encounter disappointed only so much as it was a tease for something more. As a tease, it was everything you might want though: thrown blows, traded exploders, with Akiyama's snap quick, tight and snug. He didn't take shots as you so often see, but registered them and sold as he fired back, and if anyone watching this in the back learned anything from him here, I'd hope it was that. But in the end, the payoff was all just a tease after all, bringing us back to anticipation for what yet remained ahead. That's pro wrestling too.  It never ends and it always leaves us wanting more.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: 10/10 - 10/16

AEW Dynamite 10/12

Chris Jericho (c) vs Bryan Danielson

MD: There was a period between when this was first announced and when I first caught it that I was envisioning going through the AEW roster and writing why I wanted to see Danielson wrestle people more than Jericho/Danielson 3. A paragraph about Angelico. A paragraph about Cutler. A paragraph about Nese. Etc. This is probably worth writing about though. They leaned into the Lionheart gimmick in a new way. They had to! He was Lionheart at the PPV. The story there was that the technical submission-based style Jericho had used to get the better of Moxley was completely ineffectual against Danielson and he had to resort to the low blow to win. Here, however, they were in Canada, and while I'd seen some doubt online beforehand, the wrestlers knew what they were walking into. 

This wasn't just Lionheart Chris Jericho (something that goes well into 99 after all) but babyface-coded Lionheart Chris Jericho. In Canada, that meant the fans singing along to Judas all on their own. It meant Y2J chants. It meant a 9 count punch in the corner right into the top rope frankensteiner. It meant dropkicks and topes. For Danielson it meant leaning into heel aggression, refusing the handshake upfront, less corner kicks, no flipping dropkicks in the corner, targeting the back and the abdomen, especially during the commercial break, doing the Liger pose just for the hell of it. Jericho got to play dress up, cupping his ears like Hogan, escaping the hammer and anvil elbows with a FU/AA of all things. I liked the high speed duck of the Judas Effect as they rushed towards the Judas effect. This wasn't a matchup I needed again but I appreciated how they twisted it given the setting. It's definitely one I don't need again after this, even given the finish, though they could probably wring one more out with a Painmaker Cage Match if they had to.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: 10/3 - 10/9

AEW Dynamite 10/5

Darby Allin vs Jay Lethal

MD:  I don't think we've written a word about Lethal in four years. I guess we were ahead of the curve in thinking he was pretty good except for the finisher ruining everything? That's about the least interesting thing you can say about him now, but solid 2018 commentary right there. Anyway, Darby's inclusion in the Fingers is an endless bounty of me writing about stuff I might not write about otherwise. It's good for me, I suppose. There's a lot of griping on the internet around Lethal lately. The simple fact of the matter is that he's relatively credible given his past accolades including just the sheer length of his career, and his ability to competently work a competitive match, not to mention the fact he's got a literal giant for a heater and a pencil-wielding maniac as a manager. Yet, almost every time he's out there, he loses. AEW needs heels that can lose. No amount of losses will take away the above. If you need the Jungle Boys and Darby Allins and Ricky Starks of the world to win a solid 10-15 minute match on TV, he's a good choice. The roster isn't full of heels who can afford to lose and still remain credible, ones that you're not looking to push long-term. You don't want Hobbs losing too much. You don't want Brody King losing too much. As much as I'm a fan of Serpentico or Peter Avalon's act, they're just not credible in the same way. JD Drake is, and maybe preferable, but there aren't too many other people on the roster (People would complain even more about QT!) that can serve in the specific role Lethal does. One thing that AEW does sometimes, and that they should probably do more, is have a heel tag team wrestle as a singles act for a night which helps to give a guy like Isiah Kassidy (Darby went over Quen in March) or Anthony Bowens (last year at least) some attention and means you don't have to rely too much on the few Lethals they have. Butcher and Blade are right there after all. 

So this was a good ten-fifteen minute match. That's the point. It may not be the match people wanted to see. It may not be structured the way people wanted to see it. But it was a good match, that was over with the crowd, that let Darby look good and more than that, get over an aspect of his character, and may lead to future stories. Like a lot of Darby matches that don't start with an ambush of some sort, they led with the wrestling, and escalated to a mistake/banana peel/capitalization, in this case, Lethal taking out the leg. Darby's basically 2022 Ricky Morton (just crossed with Jeff Hardy) in multiple ways and one of those ways is how well he utilizes roll-ups as hope spots. He's not always going to punch up and out of something or fight out of a corner, but he can draw you in and almost score a quick win before getting beaten on some more. Lethal's had years to learn how to effectively work over a leg and it got the fans clapping up, popping for the figure four, and believing that this would keep Darby on the ropes. They dealt with the albatross that is the Lethal Injection in a fairly clever way. The finish was fairly story heavy but settled back to the pin exchanges. Like the hope spots, Darby benefits from being the only guy on the roster with a flash pin as one of his real finishers and I liked the fight for it here. Usually the Last Supper looks slick and inevitable and here it seemed like Lethal was doing all he could to stop it. He just couldn't do enough. This was good. The fans were into it. It served one, if not more than one purpose. I'm not going to sit here and pretend it wasn't because people are bored with the idea of Lethal. If you want to go find Darby vs JD Drake instead, it's happened at least. 

Bryan Danielson/Daniel Garcia vs Chris Jericho/Sammy Guevara

MD: This was to heat up Danielson vs Jericho next week, a surprisingly tall task considering that it'd be for the ROH title in Canada and with Jericho a theoretically vulnerable champion and Danielson having the edge based on the previous two matches and the fact Garcia's gone over to his side, but they've run it twice very recently (including once with Jericho working the same Liontamer gimmick) and it needed some heating up. The appeal here then was fresh matchups: Sammy vs both Garcia and Danielson and Jericho vs Garcia. They went right to the latter, with Garcia clowning Jericho on the mat after a quick handshake. That was important as I imagine at least half the crowd came in expecting a Horsemen style beatdown. To make that sort of thing work, you have to keep Garcia on the apron and not have him scrap with Jericho. Therefore, by leading off with that exchange, they managed the crowd's expectations. 

Given everything that had happened backstage earlier in the day (and in the weeks leading up to this) Sammy had nuclear heat, and he capitalized on that here by inserting himself at almost every moment, starting from tripping Garcia early to stop the initial exchange and really never looking back from there. Sometimes it was breaking up a Garcia advantage. Sometimes it was trying to leap into the fray between Garcia and Jericho (only to get nailed by Garcia for his troubles). You got the sense that Danielson was eager to work with him and he took multiple Spanish Flys and caught a huge dive (but also cut off another one with a forearm). While Sammy stooged plenty, he also stood tall against both Danielson and Jericho. I'd argue that Jericho and Guevara worked better together for the first half but that Danielson and Garcia began to gel more (like resonating with like) as the match went on, all leading to the tandem submissions and hammer-and-anvil forearms. The finish was all about Jericho cementing the split with Garcia and ensuring Sammy went over at the height of his ire with the crowd, heating things up more for the match with Danielson next week. Instead of any prolonged heat with this one, it was more the stuttering annoyance of Sammy and Jericho's antics and both of them getting pushed back repeatedly by Danielson and Garcia. Really, it was more of a tease for the new matchups that could come out of it than anything else.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: 9/12 - 9/18

AEW Dynamite 9/14/22

Bryan Danielson vs. Chris Jericho

MD: Here was stand in 2022, and it's Chris Jericho's career year. Jericho's maybe the definition of a guy whose strengths and weaknesses are two sides of the same coin. He's a bastion of self-awareness, of reinvention, of latching on to commercial, marketable ideas. But that self-awareness always gave him a certain level of self-assuredness, which meant that he'd double down on a misstep or would get defensive if something he was so sure if didn't play exactly how he wanted with the fans. You can go back to his match with RVD twenty years ago or him thinking leaping into an RKO was a far more innovative finish than it was less than ten years ago. In ring, his eyes were bigger than his stomach. That didn't always mean breaking his leg on a shooting star press, but it often meant things not looking quite like they ought to and causing the entire, elaborately staged illusion to fall apart. 

And yet, he's 51 and having his career year. Some of that has to be his opponents and opportunities. But he's not just working smart but working hard as well and holding up his end. No one's carrying him in 2022. He's meeting them halfway, wrestling varied matches even with varied characters. I was higher than most on the All Out match where he, again, worked as the Lionheart. There, on a kayfabe level, he wasn't enough to outwrestle Danielson and had to resort to cheating. Here, as a composite of all that had come before, he still wasn't enough to outwrestle Danielson. Here it took throwing bombs (a German, an early Lionsault, the top rope 'rana) to stay in it. 

That's the brilliance in 2022 Jericho. He's willing to show ass, to wrestle with vulnerabilities, to get outclassed where it matters, but always feels like a dangerous threat. Basically, after decades of doing this, he's finally skirting up against what made Buddy Rose so good, and it's well that he is, as he's relied upon quite a bit to carry the 'territory' in 2022 as people get injured or suspended around him. They worked a fairly complete match of Jericho barely keeping his head above water as Danielson continued to force him down before the leg injury on the outside. That took things into the final third where he pressed his advantage aggressively and effectively as Danielson tried to fight back with one leg. In the end, though, they leaned into the overarching story: Danielson's simply the better wrestler, and this did what it needed to allow him to get his win back and press forward onto the title match to come.

AEW Rampage 9/16/22

Darby Allin vs. Matt Hardy

MD: Matt Hardy is not having his career year. One could argue that was his year as ECW Ace? I probably would. I'm still almost always glad to see him. He's almost as good as anyone on the roster at laying out a match and channeling a crowd. He can still absolutely work smart. After all of the bumps of his career, at 47 going on 48, it's the working hard that's a problem. Personally, I'd take the former over the latter any day. When you have Darby Allin to help create the motion for you, working smart is all you need. This started on the mat before spilling to the outside where they ran a series of clever bits: Matt blocking the tope, the big, debilitating shot into the stairs, Darby's back getting destroyed as he missed the senton onto the apron, the power bomb position charge into the post to cement the back damage. 

After that, the match was carried by Matt's laser-focus and Darby's selling, where it might take him one or two tries not to hit a move but to even get himself in a position to set it up. Matt pressed his size and strength advantage as if it was the most natural thing in the world, which for most of his career, it would not have been. Darby, as always, threw himself at his opponent, but the damage had already been done. It was Matt, unable to put him away even after a splash mountain bomb, hitting a combination of desperation and a crisis-of-expectation and missing the moonsault that Darby was able to sneak back and score a win. Yes, there was reportedly an edit or two here to make Matt's stuff look smoother, but that's why you tape wrestling. If they edited out Matt stumbling on the way up for the moonsault, that could have even come at the detriment of the match. He was ill-advised to go up and lost the match because of it. A slip might have just added to that notion. Regardless, we can only judge what we see, and a match like this shows what Matt is still capable of. Like I said, I'm still almost always glad to see him.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: 8/29 - 9/4 Part 2

All Out 9/4

Sting/Darby Allin/Miro vs. House of Black (Malakai Black/Brody King/Buddy Matthews)

MD: While this broke down at the end, it also felt very different from the last couple of far more chaotic Sting PPV matches. I loved the roles in the first half, with Miro taking the shine, Darby eating the heat, and Sting in there for the comeback. That was a different layout to the opening pairings in the FTR trios for instance. There was a sense throughout of real unity for the House of Black, something that, when combined with their size and presence, means even after their loss in the trios tournament and here, they'll be viable challengers for the trios belts or the tag titles without much effort. Miro sort of dropped out as the match went on as much more of the focus was on Sting or Darby but I liked his interactions in general, first refusing to tag in Darby and then telling Darby (who was trapped in a neutral corner) that he had to listen to him and make it over to make the tag. The bit at the end with Sting refusing to break the Scorpion even as he was getting battered and then with the mist (learned it from Muta) were both iconic. This probably could have played just as well on TV as PPV but it was still a lot of fun.

Bryan Danielson vs. Chris Jericho

MD: Full disclosure. Due to things like parental responsibility, I didn't get a chance to catch most of the PPV until Monday morning and then I jumped around a lot. This was probably the third match on the show I saw. That meant I wasn't experiencing it like the live crowd or a lot of you. I know there were criticisms of this maybe being placed wrong on the card or that it went too long, and while I agree with the latter to a degree and in a specific way I'll get into in a moment, I can't really speak for the former. Therefore, overall, this was a hit to me, not a miss. This might well be Jericho's career year and I thought the overarching story of the match was excellent, really. He had dusted off the Lionheart persona and style and had great success against Jon Moxley with it, as it played against very specific weaknesses of Mox. Now, with pride on the line, he came in expecting to repeat his success against Danielson, only to find he was brushing up against Danielson's strengths. You could see it early through his facial expressions. He came out posing and grinning through an immediate successful exchange or two, got immediately knocked on his ass, threw a chair, and came back finding the grin again. He had a couple of tricked out moves that had worked wonders against Moxley but when they failed him against Danielson, he had no recourse other than to go right back to them and fail again. That, as much as anything else was the story. He may have been able to escape a lot of what Danielson was putting him in, barely, but Danielson was easily escaping his holds and shifting back to being the aggressor. 

Whatever the Lionheart was, it was less of one thing than the whole of Bryan Danielson. Lionheart was a mask that Jericho put back on, an artificial guise, but as much as it freshened him up and gave him novel angles to attack from, he found himself too married to it and it limited him and forced him into stubborn mistakes (like the plancha to the outside which cost him). Danielson on the other hand, was the sum of everything he'd ever been, something that culminates with the seated zen position he's been using to absorb damage and throw his opponents off as of late. Where Jericho hid in his own past (and as the match went on, hid poorly, constantly adjusting pants that no longer fit correctly), Danielson wrestles like a man fully actualized. The story was so clear and clean that I wouldn't have cut any of the matwork from the beginning or middle of the match. It wasn't gratuitous. It was the point. That said, I do think the finishing stretch (everything from the first, countered Lionsault) probably went too long. There was escalation desperation in Jericho but they could have cut a few minutes and still gotten that across. In the end, they got to where they needed to be, delusion and cowardice and rationalization and a low blow to prop up a false, flimsy pride, as Daniel Garcia watched on shaking his head. Jericho, like all the greatest heels, came in expecting to win on his own merit and only succeeded to lie to himself once again.

Jon Moxley vs. CM Punk

MD: Going to stick straight to the match here. A couple of days ago, Phil wrote an explainer on the Ringer on where the backstage stuff stood and by the time this gets posted, Dynamite will have aired and things that are moving quickly will reach some other destination. I won't make this a retrospective or wax poetic on the last year. I did think this was very good though. It inverted the match from Cleveland, where Punk came in looking for a title match and Moxley rushed forward, unrelenting from the bell. There, that forced Punk off his balance and caused him to blow up his own leg. Here, he was ready both for Moxley's Hansenian onslaught, which he met head on and for his own kick, which hit picture perfect. That meant instead of early Death Riders, we got the early GTS. Things went to the outside after that, Moxley's domain, and maybe Punk hurt his arm on the dive or maybe he was selling that he did, but Mox was able to take over and open him up. The crowd, despite being in Chicago, couldn't deny Moxley at times and despite his attitude, despite (or because of?) his barbarism and dominance, they gravitated back towards him. For a while, he'd get heat by taking it so over the top. After Punk was opened up and after he made sure that the opening became a gusher, he licked the blood. Shortly thereafter, he jammed his own head against Punk's so that it'd be all over his face. When Punk started to come back from the woundwork, he went straight to the leg to cut him off. With Moxley, the malice is personal, but you shouldn't take it personally. It's universal. He carries disdain for each and every person he faces. He's a storm and it's up to his opponent to endure it and to cobble out a meaningful match from it. If you cut him (scrape him even), he will bleed. If you punch him, his head will rock. If you stretch him, he will know pain. But it's up to you to channel and redirect the forward motion, the potential energy of him, into something coherent. 

As Mox continued to dismantle and batter his opponent, Punk was able to endure however he could, was able to tough it out, was able to survive, even if sometimes that meant going for an eye. Moxley returned favor by biting the wound, by stubbornly, and unfairly (because fairness has nothing to do with pro wrestling) cutting him off by going after the leg. But eventually, Punk lasted long enough to get under Moxley, literally, and to drop him down into a GTS. In another world, that's the image that would stick with us of this night, the remnants of the match's second GTS and all the damage that had been inflicted on Punk since the first, a hobbled Moxley draped over a bloodied and exhausted Punk, and Punk's eyes opening as he saw what he needed to do. A talking point in our circle about Survivor Series 97 was that the main event between Bret and Shawn was actually shaping up to be their best match together. I might not go so far with this one, but it had a lot of merits on its own, and I can't help but wonder if in years to come, all of those will simply be a similar afterthought to everything that transpired after.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 6/27 - 7/3

AEW Dynamite 6/29

Blackpool Combat Club+ (Moxley/Kingston/Castagnoli/Yuta/Santana/Ortiz) vs. Jericho Appreciation Society (Jericho/Hager/Guevara/Menard/Parker/Garcia) - Blood & Guts

MD: A lot of times I'll catch the show in the moment (or the next morning) and then double back later in the week to write it up, but it's beyond my current ability to break down every story beat of this. That would probably be doing the match a disservice anyway. There were clever bits of layout at times, clever spots, clever timings. Obviously thought was put into this. It's a match for your heart and your gut and your bloodlust, though, not for your eyes and your head and your mind. More than that, I'd say it was three matches in one.

The first half was more produced, was the place where a lot of those clever spots factored in. It was more of a War Games of the last thirty, thirty-five years. It was the sort of a match that could build to the crowd going nuts for a Jake Hager staredown in 2022, where Claudio could establish himself as a force by wrestling Sammy and Garcia for the first time, where Angelo Parker could do an all time great stooge job trying to run away from everyone, where Moxley, Yuta, and Claudio could triple team a guy. The third that followed was visceral and gory. Mox was the guy driving it. Mox was the deathmatch wrestler come home. He may have written a book. He may have the belt. He may be a world-renown superstar, but if you read that book, you read about the guy who was elated about getting a chance to be in Cage of Death. And that was the spirit that he brought here. Yes, the pile driver on to the glass was something, but everything shifted for me when he just jabbed glass into Hager's head in the corner. Somehow the match had gone from Claudio and Hager standing in opposite rings as the crowd hyped up their encounter to Mox jabbing glass into Hager's head. Everyone stood out here in their own way but it'd be crazy not to highlight Menard and Parker for the bloody messes they became.

Then you had the last ten to fifteen minutes, a scaffold match on top of the cage. The call of how the tacks were in Jericho's shoes and how that absolutely destroyed any hope of footing was spot on. We've seen guys on top of cages before, but it never felt quite so perilous. Jericho and Kingston on their knees throwing hands felt gripping. Maybe it was the shoes. Maybe it was just Kingston's homicidal portrayal, the ill intention he had for Jericho to start, the grin on his face after tossing Sammy, the way he went through all the stages of grief on the finish when he realized that Claudio had gotten the submission before he did (all the way to a begrudging acceptance that won't possibly last). I know Wrestlemania had a moment or two of the old spectacle, whether it was Sami's match or Owens/Austin, but just imagine being Claudio getting the pop and the spotlight he did Sunday night and then rolling into the big moments he had here. Given what we know, nothing was more insane than the giant swing atop the cage and then post match he was able to run to all four sides like he was Hogan in 1986. Except for 86 Hogan was never in a match like this.

There were blips and blemishes, but they more or less added to things. It was a shame Santana went down almost immediately, especially when he's been out of the picture relatively in the last couple of months, but it ramped up the tension by making the man advantage more or less permanent. The bit with the bottle was unexpected, but it ended well enough with Mox feeling its effect. So many guys laying out for the scaffold match portion feels problematic to some degree but it's not like they hadn't been through a war and the announcers covered well by talking about how the blood loss and the potassium loss had everyone cramping up. So, overall, these things added to the feeling of unpredictability as much as as distracted from anything. It doesn't always work out that way but in a total package like this, it did. No one's going to remember the image of Conti trying to push a water bottle through the cage in five years. They're going to remember the glass and the swing atop the cage and the grief on Eddie Kingston's face when he came so close to getting everything he wanted and had it taken away by the guy who went to greener pastures instead of fighting him over a decade ago and that, on this night, saved him from the Walls before stealing his glory. 

AEW Rampage 7/1

Royal Rampage

MD: This has Dustin and Darby, so it's getting covered. Writing about two AEW battle royales in so short a time period is a little tricky though. On the one hand, this had so much of what I want out of one of these. The combination of the old Houston two-ring style and the Royal Rumble layout gave people their moments and led to some narrative possibilities better than the casino battle royales. I'd say that there wasn't that same sense of anticipation for the next entrant that the Royal Rumble tends to have, but that's because we knew everyone coming in, and I think, because the numbers came so quickly that people watching were still engaged with what was happening in the rings and not quite ready for the next entrant yet. So that's the one hand. The other is that the pacing of eliminations in the last few minutes was probably a little off and they should have found a way to make that more measured and commentary should have played up King being fresh while Darby and Page had started it off.

That's not the point though. A year ago to this month, I hadn't watched more than five minutes of AEW. I probably caught a little bit of the first Elevation because I was curious about Tony and Wight on commentary. That was it. Now, I pretty much watch all of it every week and that means I have investment in just about everyone on the roster. Sometimes it's positive. Sometimes it's negative. Sometimes it's both. For a guy like Swerve, it's both. His off-center, contrived, flowing, cooperative offense bugs me and takes me out of every match, but I'm still curious how the beef between him and Keith Lee is going to play out. The moment where they faced each other one in each ring had me thinking that might be how things ended. Maybe it wasn't a great idea to tease that when it wasn't going to be how things would end, but it probably was, because it shows the richness of the characters and of the inherent possibilities. Then, he went on and eliminated Cassidy, so there's reason for a match there (even if it's probably the Cassidy match I would want to see least) and was eliminated by Starks and Hobbs, furthering that program.

Again, all of this goes back to me, when I was 10, reading the yearly WWF Superstars magazines which had bios of every wrestler and wanting to see how each one would feel about the other if they were to interact, especially if they weren't in some program with one another. AEW will put on offbeat matches; they do it all the time. But the roster is so big that you don't get to see Starks and Hobbs interact with Adam Page all that often, or at least not in a year or two. You haven't had the chance to see Silver and Page interact lately, or Silver and Hobbs interact. Takeshita and Swerve or Darby probably won't have a match anytime soon. So you get the things you have seen lately, like Matt Hardy helping Darby up and facing off against Butcher and Blade or Rush and Penta going at it, but you also see Brody King go right after Dustin or Butcher and Max Caster having a brief alliance. The wrestling is never going to be great in one of these, so the character interaction and the sheer amount of stuff that they pack in becomes the appeal, and I thought it worked well on that level on this night. There's always going to be missed opportunities in something like this (how did they not have Dante do some sort of quadruple jump with the rings?) but they hit enough of the possibilities at play, all the way to the image of King dropping Darby to the floor, that I was happy with it.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 6/20 - 6/26

AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 6/26

Chris Jericho/Sammy Guevara/Minoru Suzuki vs. Eddie Kingston/Wheeler Yuta/Shota Umino

MD: Hot crowd, some real stakes, a lot of personal issues, and guys stepping up, so there was a lot to like here. The biggest issue was Eddie vs Jericho, obviously, but Eddie had reasons to get his hands on Sammy after what happened to Ortiz and Suzuki was in the match to be the anti-Kingston weapon (to great success as we'd see). So they delayed Jericho vs Eddie until the time was right. The AEW house style is all about setting up spots and paying them off later, or alternatively, hitting spots and then inverting them on a second attempt. Here, after Yuta started off with Jericho giving him a ton of shine (albeit shine leading to an easy enough kick out for him) and the subsequent brawling around the ring, they gave the crowd a Kingston vs Suzuki chop off. Suzuki walked into the machine gun chops, completely negating them. He took the advantage and Jericho came in to take advantage of that, only for Kingston to comeback and then hit the machine gun chops on Jericho, who sold all over the place. That, right there, was a nice little bit of set up and payoff. Suzuki was able to get Kingston's arm as he tried to knock him off the apron, though, and that gave us a bit of a heat. Just a bit though. 

The match would break down shortly thereafter and stay broken down for the rest. It worked more often than not and most often when there was a big character impulse driving it, like Umino getting Jericho in the Crab and then enduring shots from everyone or when the hit the dive train with Suzuki teasing his or the triple submissions or, I suppose when they hit one rapid fire spot after the next ending with Sammy's cutter and Yuta's splash, though that last one felt more choreographed than opportunistic. Some of the choices between break-ups and nearfalls towards the end were a little dubious, most especially the tornado DDT/brainbuster combo. The dynamic between Kingston and Suzuki, where Suzuki kept getting in his way and slowing him down but not ultimately stopping him from getting a shot in here or there was effective. Yuta and Umino stepped up appropriately; no one can say that Yuta isn't taking full advantage of his opportunity. Sammy looked like he belonged in there. I'd say the finish followed from the story of the match well enough too, as the cumulative damage was ultimately too much for Kingston's side. I would have maybe liked more extended heat before everything broke down though. 

Bullet Club (Young Bucks/El Phantasmo) vs. Dudes with Attitudes (Sting/Darby Allin/Shingo Takagi)

MD: By the time this match started, it'd been non-stop multi-wrestler action since that little heat segment on Kingston's arm, with maybe a small respite when Clark Connors was getting beaten on. The action was good and I'd argue even at times smart, but it was all a little much. If they had shuffled the Ospreay/Cassidy match earlier on the card maybe? On paper, a match with a bunch of comedy spots would have been a good palette cleanser but it was still a multi-man spot-laden thing, so while being different in one way, it was more of the same in another. That said, in a vacuum, all of these things worked. Sting hit the big dive to start and then got to hit his first ever senton. Darby unsurprisingly fed into all of the Bucks' stuff well and they fed for his comeback. Sting got to get a bunch of superhero moments and the crowd went up for all of them. When everything really went crazy at the end it occasionally got a bit disjointed, which sometimes makes things feel more organic but maybe not here. I thought the finish felt a little flat maybe because Shingo had a bit too many things and the fans weren't as familiar with them as they might have been? Or maybe it was because it was a bit of an anti-climax due to the couple of minutes before it. Still, it's amazing how natural and meaningful Sting felt on this card, which is a testament both to him and his opponents.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 5/23 - 5/29 (Part 2)

Double or Nothing 5/29

Darby Allin vs. Kyle O'Reilly

MD: I had to run this one back a second time to get a better feel for it. First time through, it felt sort of disjointed, with Darby getting opened up immediately and that botched first dive not helping things, plus the finishing stretch coming off as a deflation instead of impactful (more on that in a bit). Second time through worked better. The skeleton key here, which Ross missed completely and Excalibur came to too late, was that this wasn't just a match for the sake of a match. The whole point was Darby going for revenge while it was just business for O'Reilly. O'Reilly had lured him out and he was prepared to capitalize on not just mistakes but on basic emotion. O'Reilly was ready right from the get go, countering the initial single leg and opening Darby up. Darby was able to hit his counter-based offense (like the flipping stunner) but his dives and drops were themselves countered. Then, towards the end, O'Reilly used Darby's chain necklace against him to set up the choke, the kicks, and the knee drop off the top. I fully admit I haven't seen a ton of O'Reilly's AEW run so if they've built up the PKs as a deadly finish for the crowd, I missed it. They didn't look all that great and the kneedrop was to the side and not the skull, and it's Darby whose whole deal is resilience so I'm not sure I bought the finish. Overall, though, the underlying story worked for me, even if the announcers could have told their side of it better, with the choppiness chalked up to Darby being out for revenge.

Anarchy in the Arena: Danielson/Kingston/Moxley/Ortiz/Santana vs. Jericho Appreciation Society (Jericho/Menard/Parker/Hager/Garcia)

MD: Sort of hard to write about this. Obviously the finish absolutely worked. Danielson had Jericho beat. Kingston marched back to the ring covered in blood, murder in his eyes. He was ready to set not just Jericho on fire but Danielson as well. Danielson ends up the one who pays the most for it setting up whatever's to come next. What might have been most impressive here was the production, from the looping music (with the fans popping big once they realized it was looped) and Jericho shutting it down to the fact that they were able to capture so much of the action overall while never making us feel like we were truly missing out. We were missing out, absolutely. We missed transitions. We'd come in and one guy would be winning the fight, cut to something else, and come back to have the situations reversed. It didn't really matter though because it all felt like a welcome part of the chaos. We didn't really see how people got opened up. We didn't need to. The blood on their faces and their chests were enough. We have no idea what happened in the freight elevator with Kingston and Garcia. That's fine. We saw the aftermath. I did feel Regal's absence here but I'm not sure how you would have best utilized him in the match. Overall, Jericho actually carried the emotional brunt of this, first with the brawling with Moxley, which was entertaining and had history behind it, and then by being front and center for everything that happened at the end, but everyone had their moments and Parker and Menard bleeding, stooging, and clowning really deserve recognition too. One of my lowkey favorite moments was Garcia hitting a shining wizard in the middle of the concessions area on Kingston obviously as tribute to his new mentor. He should start using that to set up the 1990s style Liontamer instead of the lean-back Sharpshooter. Anyhow, the match lived up to its name, but that almost goes without saying.

CM Punk vs.  Adam Page

MD: I am relatively new to Adam Page. I hadn't seen any AEW until Punk and Danielson showed up and it's not like the blog has gone out of its way to cover 2010s NJPW. In fact, given the prevalence of that style in the overall community, one could argue that we went out of our way not to cover it. I like the interviews I hear from Page. I appreciate his social media presence. I admire that the guy has persevered through his issues and has been open with them. I think there are certain things he does very well in the ring. He emotes well. His stuff hits hard and clean. He brings a lot of energy and aggression and dynamism. We all liked the Archer match from earlier this year. In general, though, his matches kind of drive me nuts. He goes straight from punching and chopping to the fallaway slam/kip up/springboard clothesline spot, usually followed by a dive, and he never looks back after that. I don't know if it's taken from an all-bombs NJPW style I'm not familiar or just Brock-ism, and I get that I'm an outlier on both fronts, but the lack of mid-level offense that lets a match build before escalation really gets to me. There absolutely isn't one way to do things and there shouldn't be, but his matches somehow both seem to miss a chunk of something integral while still being overflowing with stuff. 

Meanwhile, CM Punk has been all over the promotion, and he's brought with him this sort of Neo-Bret-ism: slowing things down, fighting hard over the value and payoff of single spot, bringing the bodyslam back into wrestling, heavy focus on limb selling that reoccurs throughout a match and drives narratives, interesting match layouts that work around the commercial breaks. Danielson, on the other hand, has brought a sort of hard-nosed, forward pressing aggression that interfaces with whoever he's in the ring with. It meant that Page's matches with him ended up less of a clash of styles but instead a merging of them. 

In the ring, this match embodied the underlying stories of the program far better than the lead-up or promos or announcers had been able to present them. It felt like a battle between at least what I imagine the AEW of 2019 and 2020 to be and what the AEW of 2022, with a broader roster and more diverse inspirations, seems to be. Page had overcome his demons, overcome the challenges that plagued him in 2019 and 2020 and finally conquered the AEW that he helped create. In the meantime, however, he had taken months off for the birth of his child and the AEW he returned had grown and changed, in ways that were not at all aligned with his norms and values. Despite that, he had overcome Danielson, only to see that CM Punk was in the center of every promotional image, only to watch Punk lay down those bodyslams and start to pull things back to a world that he felt that the Elite had transcended, building back up old idols that they had successfully torn down, just as the successful NJPW of the 2010s didn't resemble the NJPW of the 80s or 90s and as the Young Bucks continuously have immense success tearing down the norms of traditional tag team wrestling. He finally won, finally reached the top of the mountain, only to realize that it wasn't everything he had hoped and dreamed for. He faced down the challenge of Danielson, a physical challenge, one based on hard work and toughness, only to realize that there was a more invasive, more perfidious challenge before him and his kingdom, in the preachings of Punk. And Punk, who was working with all of the younger talent, who was putting the time and effort in, who was trying to be a decent human being no matter how much of a strain it was when he's just naturally a grumpy bastard, didn't see why Page was so upset over a little thing like his heresy. But a king has to defend his kingdom, from ideas most of all, and Punk, more secure in his own skin after all he'd been through, realized he had the higher moral ground for once. And he acted upon it.

So the match, a match still between two crowd-favorites, between two babyfaces, became less about who would win and more about who was right? In the end, that mattered far more to Page than to Punk. Page had his doubts. Punk had arrogant assurance. Punk wanted to win more, but he had his ego and he believed in his values, and he was going to return Page's affronts within the match with ones of his own. As the match went on, it got both of them in trouble. It took both of their eyes off the ball and the fans, otherwise equal, united in expressing their frustration at either when that occurred. You rarely see that in a match where the fans were not booing the wrestlers, but instead passing judgment upon their actions. You'd see it more in older Japanese matches when someone took a liberty. Here it was when they stopped and taunted, when they refused to follow up but basked in the moment instead, when they tried to prove something instead of trying to win. Maybe, just maybe, Page could beat Punk in a wrestling match all things equal. There's no way in the world that Page could win a pissy bitching content with Punk, though. No one could. That's what he chose to fight, and in the end, after he tossed Punk over the table, after he watched Punk stumble about failing to hit Buckshots, after he hit a GTS of his own, he stood there in the center of the ring, belt in hand, living a Wrestlemania 8 Bret vs Piper moment, and completely lost and adrift. How had he gotten there? Who was he anymore? What had he fought so hard for? It certainly wasn't this. He tried to change course, tried to get back onto the path, but it was too late. 

So, yeah, I liked it.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 4/11-4/17

AEW Dynamite 4/13

CM Punk vs. Penta Obscura

MD: Writing about 2022 Punk almost every week, what stands out to me the most is probably his connection to the crowd. There was a moment early on where he somehow managed a step up armdrag off the ropes. It seems like the sort of thing he only did because he was wrestling a "lucha guy" but hey, Penta based for him and it worked even if it wasn't the prettiest thing in the world. Point being, afterwards he had a big shit-eating grin on his face and made enough of a connection with the crowd that they cut the camera to this random guy giving him that big grin back and Fonzie-pointing to him like he was telling a friend of his "'ey, good one, pal!" It's no small thing.

It wasn't just that moment either. I was wondering how he was going to deal with the Penta taunt at the start and he played into the fact that the C and the M were his name and got the crowd chanting back and forth. When the taunt (and shove) came, they went right into a strike exchange, and if you're going to do a no-sell strike exchange, best to do it right at the start. Punk didn't exactly no sell though; instead he let Penta's chops turn his body so that he was wound up for his own shot back. Regardless, the thing, simple as it was, drew an AEW chant in the first two minutes of the match.

It's good they had the crowd too, as the match sort of went off the rails the longer it went. They were already moving sluggishly for what they were trying to do even before Punk fell off the ropes and started to sell the knee heavily (which could have been intentional or him covering, but it doesn't really matter). After that it became even more overwrought. There were a couple of nice teases of spots afterwards (like the pile drivers on the apron) and it looked like Penta even had a shot, which spoke well for the layout of the finishing stretch. But there was also Punk being a little too selective with the knee selling and maybe getting out of the arm snap a little too easily (twice) instead of protecting it well enough. They ultimately probably tried to do just a little too much when they should have been leaning more into who they were and not what they could do.

Eddie Kingston/Santana/Ortiz vs. Chris Jericho/Jake Hager/Daniel Garcia

MD: This was the first actual match in this chapter of the feud and they ended up giving it more than I expected them to, while also keeping it very conventional and conservative, though with some definite high spots at the end. The opening bit with Santana and Jericho was perfect, with Jericho mouthing off and getting punched in the face for it and then giving for Santana, ending with the double leg and everything breaking down. They used Hager as a brick wall to cut off Ortiz with the heat lasting through the break like usual. It was solid though: good hope spots, good cut offs, Kingston and Santana working the apron. They mostly kept Garcia out of it so that he could provide that last burst of energy and motion and speed to set up the hot tag and then take everyone's offense after Kingston came in. His double-underhook suplex out of the ropes looked great. It felt like there were some timing miscues on the end, more like three or four than just one, but overall this was disciplined and a good prelude to the street fights to come.

ER: Man this was really good. It's smack dab in the middle of a Dynamite that had several Meltzer 4 star plus matches, except this 4 star match actually had a good layout and didn't have several blown spots like those other classics that people definitely remembered a day later. I loved how this built, love how these guys spend 10 minutes. Everyone had something to do and knew exactly how they could add to the match. Santana looks bigger and more aggressive, Jericho played weak to Santana but tough to Ortiz, Kingston is frothing on the apron and targeting Garcia, Garcia plays a great punk, Ortiz is a great FIP, Hager is the muscle. They all blend it so well. I loved Santana battering Jericho, with Jericho even running from him! It made it that much better when Jericho was beating up Ortiz, throwing tighter punches and harder chops than he was throwing at Santana, his entire body posture changed. 

Kingston isn't a rabid dog on the apron, he's a dog being held just outside the gates of the dog park, waiting for every little burst where he's finally allowed to play. He doesn't just pounce on Garcia on the floor, he grapevines his leg while punching him, yanking him off the apron to get more; when Jericho is starting to pick apart Ortiz and posing for the cameras, King runs in and shoves him out of his shot. JAS are really good in their corner, especially Garcia. He had a truly great choke from the apron, hooking that arm and leaning back with his weight, and I love how they handled the hot tag: Garcia ran in and came down hard on Ortiz, in his first real attempt at a hot tag. Ortiz managed to make the tag anyway and it left him wide open for King and Santana to tee off on him. Santana's three amigos and big splash were strong, and it all kept building to a bigger and crazier stretch: Kingston hits a heavy tope suicide, Santana flies out with a plancha, Ortiz takes out 2.0 with a tope con giro, loved all of it. I'm not sure I noticed any of the miscommunications that Matt saw. I thought all of this was tight. Then again, on a show with another classic 4.5 star Luchasaurus match, anything would seem tight. 

AEW Rampage 4/15

Blackpool Combat Club vs. Gunn Club

MD: If the BCC is going to stay a three-man unit for a while, this was our first look at what their matches might look like. Obviously, you came into this looking for a change in Yuta, for him to be wrestling somewhat different, for some new fire and viciousness within him, and I think they got that more right than wrong. There were hints of finger manipulation early and that, I think, is something he should really be leaning into. Steve Grey is one of his favorite wrestlers, but he needs to be looking to Breaks and Rudge and instead of the world's greatest blue-eye. That's not his path right now. The crowd was very behind him though, and they built to a big moment in the end where he stood up to Billy Gunn. Gunn's a great visual element in small doses and was so here. Maybe Yuta doesn't have to be killing people left and right if the crowd gets behind him primarily for his resilience, sort of like an Ogawa teaming with a Misawa. I still think he can be more though, so long as the work continues.

Danielson, who worked the middle and took the heat, had a great little bit where he forearmed the side of the head while holding Colton (I think) in the Romero Special, but the best stuff was when he faced off against Billy. I like how they kept Mox out of it for the most part, mainly having him working the apron and trying to get in. It meant when he did come in, it was all this built up potential energy waiting to be unleashed. I know it's ridiculous and over the top but there's no way Austin Gunn is going to stand out in this roster otherwise, so he should keep doing what he's doing. It gets a reaction, it's memorable. It works. I think it's important that the BCC continues to wrestle both faces and heels but this was a nice first showing for them as a unit.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Part 2: AEW Revolution 3/6/22

AEW Revolution 3/6

Eddie Kingston vs. Chris Jericho - EPIC

MD: I wondered how Jericho was going to handle this one. There were limitations due to the card. In a world without MJF vs Punk they could have done a bloody brawl or something more cinematic. In a world without Danielson vs Mox, they could have had an absolute slugfest. What we got instead was the most in shape Jericho has been in years and him pushing himself to the limit physically to work a Kingston match. That meant the perfect mix of hard strikes, big selling, and nasty bombs.

Eddie was going to be Eddie. He's a constant, always on, always filling the gap, always thinking, always acting, always hitting as hard as he can and leaning into everyone else's shots to make them twice as resonant. Jericho, however, was absolutely present, selling the emotion of the match, responding to the fans' chants, getting into it with Aubrey to get more heat after a near-fall. He started out from a deficit, getting caught with the half and half immediately. The hole was only going to get deeper when the striking shot because he couldn't match Eddie's chops (in fact, no amount of leaning in that Eddie did could fully justify how much he was selling for Jericho on them).

What he did instead was acutely target Eddie's orbital bone with pinpoint shots. That paid out throughout the match. When he wanted to hit the top rope frankensteiner, he'd shoot a palm strike up first. When he wanted to cut off Eddie in the corner, it would be with a jab to the eye. Of course, Eddie was Eddie and would shoot a poke right back at Jericho. Likewise, Jericho was Jericho and instead of leaning wholly into his strengths, he had to try to outsuplex Eddie with a number of Germans and one amazing Foley-like bump from Kingston off the apron to the floor. It all built to Eddie surviving the Walls, Jericho surviving the backfist, then almost winning by hitting a first codebreaker onto the orbital bone. Eddie bumped for a second codebreaker as hard anyone ever took it, but Jericho's ego and spite won out. He went for a Judas Effect to crush Eddie's face instead of going for the pin and Eddie was able to capitalize with two backfists and the world's most over the top stretch plum. Eddie's match is a hell of a thing, something that wears all of its influences on its sleeve but while making everything matter and everything hit emotionally, and Jericho jumped headlong into it better than anyone could have expected.

PAS:  Eddie just delivers every time in big matches. This was Kingston Road Eddie, which isn't always my favorite style of his, but it was a great version of it. As always Eddie elevates the match over a regular All Japan pastiche by his amazing selling, loved all of the stuff around the eye, and how vicious Jericho was. Potato shot Jericho isn't the way he normally works, but it is my favorite version of him, and he was matching Eddie with every blow, some of those suplexes were really sick, and good on old man Jericho for taking those head drops, and it made total sense for his old crickly neck to be the thing that did him in with the Stretch Plum.

CM Punk vs. MJF

MD: I've watched this one twice now and I appreciate the work and the effort certainly. I appreciate the thought put into it. Nothing is in there without a reason. Everything builds from something else, whether something from four decades ago, two decades ago, or two months ago. The announcers did a fairly heroic job in connecting the dots and laying everything out for the audience, on the understanding that the fans in the crowd would be the most hardcore possible and would know enough to begin with to follow along for most of it. And overall, I did think it worked.

There were things I outright loved. I loved the build early on to the chain being used as a punch-enhancing weapon. I'm a proponent of the gimmick immediately being present and having an indirect impact on what happens in a match but also being built up for an early payoff. That's true with a cage or barbed wire or a chain. Here it impacted movement and was used indirectly and the punch was teased a few times, but when it paid off, it was on MJF's hand and led to Punk gushing. That followed, by the way, MJF using the chain to block Punk's bulldog out of the corner, so it was the ultimate indirect use of the chain leading to the first meaningful direct use of it, which, in turn, led to the blood. By the way, the corner bulldog would come up again twice later, first Punk hitting it with the chain wrapped to avoid the indirect counter and then MJF trying it onto the thumbtacks, which was him, once again, showing his hubris and needing to vanquish Punk with his own move.

Once Punk's gusher started, we got what I thought was the most important moment of the match and the entire feud, when Max took the mic and reiterated that Punk abandoned and betrayed him. Even after the victory in Chicago, even after the ambush last week, even after bloodying him with the chain, Punk was in MJF's head, he had no catharsis, and he lashed out at the fans for not going along with him and seeing him as the hero of his own story. This is pro wrestling and one feud has to move on to the next and Wardlow was waiting in the wings, but that was the moment that signified that no matter how else everything played out in the match itself, the feud could end and Punk could win it. In many ways, it proved he already had.

Still, the match had to get there, and I think it moved along fairly well, through the crushing of the hand, through the submission attempts, through the wrapped knee opening MJF up, through Punk dragging Max around the ring (though that felt a little too collaborative to me), through Punk shattering his knee on the stairs, right up until the tombstone on the apron. That's when things veered off a bit. It was one too many clever spots in a match that could be allowed to be clever, but only up to the point where that ingenuity didn't get in the way of the visceral violence. To me, the tombstone and the thumbtacks that followed ended up as one too many spots from the head when they should have been laying it into each other down the stretch instead. Maybe it's okay because Max had already lost himself the war. Maybe it's okay because he'd already bled (though not nearly enough). Maybe it's okay because Wardlow had learned his worth and was about to show it to the world, but maybe okay isn't what the match was going for and maybe that final patch of being okay snatched away just a touch of greatness. Just a touch though, since there was still a lot of greatness to be found.

Bryan Danielson vs. Jon Moxley

PAS: Wrote this up for The Ringer  . Easily one my favorite matches of the year.

MD: Phil's covered this already and at length, but I'll lead with this: with Punk and MJF, I saw the strings. I appreciated the work and effort put into them. I liked most (but not all of them), but there was never a moment in the match that they weren't clear for everyone to see. It's 2022. That's ok. But.

There were definitely strings in Mox vs Danielson. There were parallels. Mox went for the big clothesline twice before hitting it. Danielson focused on the ribs for a time. They had parallels towards the end with the submissions and the specific flip over counters. They had Danielson and Moxley both use the hammer and anvil elbows and the repeated kicks to the face. There was thought put into this, but there were also absolutely zero gaps to be found.

There were strings because there had to be strings because not all of it could have just been intuitive, but you have to exhume them after the fact, a dry listed out post-mortem at the brains behind the heart. Because this match was all heart and all emotion and all intensity. Every second of it had both guys completely on, completely in the moment, driving forward. If Kingston vs Jericho were a series of moves and moments that all fit the character and all made sense and all hit hard, this was a twenty minute primal scream, airtight blood, and violence, and technique. Danielson, over the last few weeks in interviews, likened this level of intensity to being as close to god as he could possibly be.

Mox wrote an entire book that espouses his philosophy on wrestling and life and you can watch it play out on screen in his matches. With Mox, it was the early egging on, hands behind his back, the headbutts, the burst of energy when he finally hit the clothesline. With Danielson, it was that moment after Mox kicked out of the flying knee, when he just shook his head again and again and again, horrified that he didn't win but elated that there was more to come. Horror and elation sums this one up pretty well as a viewer too.

Darby Allin/Sammy Guevara/Sting vs. Andrade/Isiah Kassidy/Matt Hardy

PAS: Perfect palate cleansing match in between the Moxley vs. Danielson and title match. Just 13 minutes of car crash spots, including two of the crazier garbage spots I can remember (and shockingly neither included Darby, the rare match where he is out nutsed). The stage dive Spanish fly through two tables was so psycho that it really should have been saved for a different match where it could stand out, the level of difficulty on that spot was wild, one one wrong inch could have gone very wrong. Of course Sting diving off of a balcony through two tables was totally wild, the stacked tables meant he didn't have to fall as a far, but that is an insane thing for a 60 year old guy to do, what a treat this Sting run has been, he has just been perfect.

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WCW Nitro 12/30/96

1. The Amazing French Canadians vs. Public Enemy

ER: This had some odd uses of time, with the Canadians giving us the whole interrupted off-time National Anthem bit, and Public Enemy taking forever to get into the ring, really hitting every side of the ring to see how many people in Knoxville are waving their hands in the air. When they're wrestling, it's an amusing match. There are fun sloppy punch outs and an old lady in the front row giving advice and encouragement to PE. Both Canadians take nice backdrops (Carl went higher) after a fun punch out, but then get kept on the floor for while PE block the ropes for nearly a third of the match. Rougeau is great at getting himself on a table for PE, something hardly anyone does well. Jacques moves so Rocco Rock puts Grunge through a table with a Drive-By, and then the Canadians win in-ring with their own top rope assisted senton. I don't know what they call drive-bys in Canada, but it's probably got something to do with kicking at someone while riding a black horse. 

2. Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Ultimo Dragon

ER: These two were the big cruiserweight winners at Starrcade the night before, each getting a long time in their matches to build whatever they wanted. Here they didn't even get a third of the time they got at Starrcade, and the match felt disjointed and incomplete because of it. Dragon's strikes all looked very light, and his timing was off on his tilt-a-whirls. Liger had a lot of crisp stuff, like a nice cartwheel tope en reversa and follow up rolling senton, and a hard powerbomb (that was far more respectful than any of his powerbombs to Rey the night before). Dragon can be really lazy about how he sells opponent offense and sets up his own offense, like when he hits a light body slam and nothing else to set up a big missed top rope splash (a move I've never seen him do unless he catches boots on the landing). I did like Dragon using Liger as a jungle gym, scrambling all over him in the corner to hit a nice frankensteiner, and the tiger suplex follow up looked painful while also surprising for the finish. It seems crazy to me to have Liger win a long dominant match against Rey, only to turn around and have Ultimo Dragon take some offense until it was his turn. Things feel wrapped up too neatly and too feebly. 

3. Strap Match: Konnan vs. Michael Wallstreet

ER: This was supposed to be Konnan vs. Big Bubba, which sounds better on paper than Konnan vs. Wallstreet. Wallstreet issues a threat on Bubba's behalf before cheapshotting Konnan with a strap. Believe it or not WCW didn't run many strap matches in their existence, only a dozen or so (and half of those were Sting/Vader). But somehow one of the strap matches they chose to run was a Michael Wallstreet match, all 2.5 minutes of it. Wallstreet whips Konnan, takes a long journey to climb the ropes only to jump off into Konnan's boot, and then Konnan whips Wallstreet. Even with this match being under 3 minutes, they still managed to give us the most common strap match finish, taking up a huge portion of the match with it, and the second any viewer saw Konnan tag the turnbuckle immediately after Wallstreet tagged his first buckle they should have know where this was heading. 

4. Hugh Morrus vs. Kensuke Sasaki

ER: At minimum, this was a couple of guys who had no problem hitting hard and not backing down. They didn't take that as far as they could have, and the finish was as weak as can be, but it's fun to see Kensuke Sasaki hit Hugh Morrus as hard as he can while Morrus acts like none of it phases him. There are hard hitting shoulderblocks, lots of kicks to the stomach, and fast clubs to the back. Sasaki throws whistling chops, Morrus rakes the eyes and throws mediocre punches, makes hard impact on his clotheslines and hits a pretty unforgiving avalanche. Sasaki hits how own just-as-hard lariat, a big powerslam, and his over the shoulder rolling arm drag. The finish is incredibly lazy and one that WCW went to a lot, where someone with a top rope finisher would just take a lot of offense, then hit one singular bodyslam and hit their finisher. The No Laughing Matter hits, and the ref has to slow down his count because Sonny Onoo is late breaking up the pin. This was just two guys filling time until an uninspiring finish, even playing as background to Eric Bischoff confiscating a VHS tape of Hogan losing to Piper, but they hit each other hard and that's enough to make it the best match of the first hour of this Nitro. 

5. Harlem Heat vs. Faces of Fear

ER: This had some timing mistakes and a messy finish, and is really only saved by Faces of Fear's willingness to lean into Harlem Heat's kicks. Harlem Heat really don't show a lot of team chemistry (although to be fair, a lot of that is Stevie Ray being where he doesn't belong), and a lot of their simplest strikes show a lot of light. There are a few big moments in the match, like Barbarian taking a stiff Booker axe kick and not going down, only to get leveled right after by a Harlem sidekick. Barbarian also hit an insane top rope belly to belly on Booker that really threw him to the opposite corner, and to put over how dangerous that landing could have been, Col. Parker came out in his French Legionnaire get-up and whipped Sherri's ass with his riding crop. French Canadians interfere, Harlem Heat get the win even though the interference was aimed at them, and this should have ended with Faces of Fear massacring everyone instead of just rolling away. 

6. Disco Inferno vs. Glacier

ER: This was great, loved every second of it. Glacier was still pretty new, only a few months in, and I'm not sure there was a person on the WCW roster who could stooge better for Glacier's offense at this point. He's great at setting up his own ass kicking, too, taunting Glacier on the mic after Glacier's long entrance. "Look Glacier, you're career is just starting." Telling Glacier that if he knew what was best for him he'd leave, before Disco embarrassed him. I love that stuff. When Glacier finally just grabs him with a top wristlock throw, Disco holds onto the mic the entire time and yells into it in pain through the whole bump. Not all of Glacier's kicks and palm thrusts look great, but Disco makes every single legsweep and leaping kick and palm strike look as great as they will look. Disco pinballed and did pratfalls and made a ton of great OFF noises every time he caught heel (palm or foot) to the breadbox. 

There's a great transition to Disco's control, when he tries to use referee Scott Dickinson as a human shield, distracting Glacier enough to plaster him with a great western lariat. All of Disco's offense looked great, like his snapped off swinging neckbreaker or his elbowdrop straight down onto Glacier's throat. But what looks even better is Disco posing for far too long on the turnbuckles as Glacier does a kip up to a big reaction (obviously, because kip ups are cool) in the background, then hits a flat out gorgeous highlight reel Cryonic Kick as Disco turns around and jumps right into it. You could make an effective Glacier video package using shots of this kick a few times. His form is excellent, the arc on the kick is impressively vertical, and it looks straight out of a John Woo movie. This is the finisher of a guy who is justifying his push. Loved this. 

7. Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho

ER: A great example of the 4 minute Nitro workrate match. It's a fairly breathless 4 minute sprint, exactly what fans of these two would enjoy seeing. Tenay refers to him as "Mr. Intensity" Christ Benoit, but that nickname doesn't really fit (and I don't think ever caught on). Benoit isn't really intense here, so much as he has a real vicious dead-eyed performance. Both guys are showcased and get big spots, and things ramp up quick with a great Jericho springboard dropkick that sends Benoit sprawling off the apron, and follows it up with a missile dropkick to the floor! Benoit's offense is delivered really violently; he catches Jericho with a hotshot, throws hard stomps to the back of the head, blistering chops, and a hard landing fast elbowdrop. Jericho refuses to get run over and slams into Benoit with a stiff falling lariat to give the match a good breath. Benoit wins fairly easily with a big back suplex off the top, but this was an action-packed 4 minutes. 

A super entertaining promo happens in the entrance way after the match, with Flair strutting around in a college pullover, Woman looking drop dead gorgeous, Mongo wearing a chambray shirt the same color as his jeans, and another great Debra McMichael promo. Debra is an extremely underappreciated character in wrestling. A condescending Texas Christian who slurs her words and insults you to your face with a "bless your heart" smile just begging to be slapped. Debra does Dynasty party talk better than Dynasty did party talk. When Woman leaves after getting into it with Debra, Debra tells Gene "she's got all these built up hostilities because of her weight gain over the holidays". It's so cutting. Mongo has incredible denim meathead energy, yelling at Woman "That'll be the day, when a skirt like you tells Mongo what to do!" The McMichaels are amazing. 

8. Mascarita Sagrada/Octagoncito vs. Jerrito Estrada/Piratita Morgan

ER: I had no memory of WCW attempting a minis division, and it's pretty wild to just throw out 4 minis unannounced to the Knoxville crowd in the third hour of Nitro and give them 2 minutes to get over. I'm not sure why you even bother sending guys out to that kind of fate. Still, they work a lot of cool spots into less than 2.5 minutes and the fans do start reacting to it. WCW only used these guys for two matches, and this reaction was probably at least as good as any of the reactions they got in front of cold disinterested WWF shows from 97-99. Jerrito bumps appropriately big for a mini version of Jerry Estrada, doing strong base work for all of Sagrada's headscissors and monkey flips. Piratita takes a couple of really big bumps for a big boy, including a great somersault bump past the ringpost to the floor, and there was a fun extended sequence where the rudos kept being lured into doing chain offense to each other. I am not sure why this happened, but it was an enjoyable blink. 

9. Dean Malenko vs. Rey Misterio Jr. 

ER: Matches like these are why a lot of us were switching over to Nitro in 96/97, but a lot of them are weird time capsules now. The moves look good, there's often little story behind them aside from "get up and do more" and the crowds react with most arms folded silence until the matches end in confusion. Here a 9 minute match gets the 10 minute time limit draw treatment, a bell just ringing in the middle of an exchange like the recess bell sounding during a game of capture the flag. The fans weren't reacting to any of the several ungiving back bumps that Rey took, and suddenly ending a match in a draw wasn't going to help. Malenko and Misterio work well together, that's no secret, because Rey can get his head powerbombed into the mat several times a match and Dean is great at catching complicated headscissors and ranas. Early on Malenko works over Rey's back in painful ways, getting him vertical with a single leg crab while digging his knee in, throwing him way up into the air for an awesome flapjack, his great press slam gutbuster, bouncing Misterio with a Last Ride style powerbomb, all punishing stuff. The problem is that for Rey to get in any offense, he has to ignore that he just got his cerebellum smashed into the mat at concussion speed and bounce back to his feet to sprint around. Rey has some crazy moments, like an unhinged butt splash senton from the top rope over the ringpost to the floor, and a cool rana to the floor where he Fuerza bumps his way into getting his legs around Malenko's neck. There were a couple of cool reversals that played off early spots, like Dean catching a headscissors and sitting down into a sideslam, or Rey flying over Dean's head and turning a pop-up powerbomb into a Manami Roll. It all looked cool, but it didn't really play as a full match, and when they just went into a few rapid fire pinfall exchanges they felt like they came from a different match. It's a recommendable match because it's 10 minutes of cool stuff, but every move feels like it happens in its own vacuum.

10. Lex Luger vs. Greg Valentine

ER: Greg Valentine is in his mid-40s here, but when your wrestling style revolves around dropping heavy elbows, throwing stiff chops, and leaning into strikes, well then that's a style that is going to age well. He does feel like an anachronism in this era, but this was a fun short match made up almost entirely of punches, elbows, and clotheslines. When two guys are good at throwing punches and elbows you really don't need much more than that to fill a fun 3 minutes. Valentine really roughs up Luger, and when it's his time to sell he does some great tip toes selling for Luger's punches, and goes down with a thud for Luger's clotheslines. Luger drags Valentine over the ropes from the apron to Rack him, which is a cool babyface visual. 

The show ends on a great segment, with Hogan and the FULL cast and crew of the nWo surrounding Piper and giving him a stiff beatdown. They bash his surgically repaired hip with a chair, Scott Norton really puts the boots to him, Hall/Nash/Hogan do an ill-advised three man press slam and throw spike Piper chest first across Norton's knee, just a total beatdown. Piper gets stretchered out, the garbage rains onto the ring and the nWo (Scott Hall ignoring a full box of popcorn hitting his back, Bischoff never flinching at soda cups. It all leads to the Giant standing up to Hogan and choking him, then fighting off a ton of nWo flunkies. Giant looked like a real monster, and there was a cool visual of Hogan directing the full nWo roster to surround the ring. Bagwell attacks first, leaping off the top rope onto Giant's back and getting flung across the ring. Vincent runs directly into Giant's hand, and Giant palms his head like a basketball while wasting him with a chokeslam. nWo Sting takes another great chokeslam, before the big guys get involved and they swarm the Giant. This is part of what made the nWo great. It was a common talking point at the time that allowing a ton of "lesser" workers into the nWo weakened the entire operation, made it into a club with no kind of exclusivity. But you NEED members to strengthen your gang. You NEED bodies. You need cannon fodder. Vincent is a great guy to get pushed by Hogan into a chokeslam. It's great to have a fake Sting who gets his ass kicked. Even Michael Wallstreet, in his mullet and sleeveless nWo shirt, actually looked cool for the first time in who knows when. He looked like a guy who would get his ass beat in a Bronson movie, and the nWo needed guys like that. Bray Wyatt only recruited like one guy into his cult. How stupid is that?? You recruit EVERYBODY YOU CAN. 

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